12 volt battery question please
My batteries are very difficult to remove for winter. Plus I may want to take up ice fishing/camping again!! I am thinking about building hard foam insulation around the batteries to help keep them ...
Forum Discussion
pianotuna wrote:
~DJ~ so long as the batteries are charged it is better for them to be cold. It slows down self discharge about 50% for every 18 F (10 C) the ambient temperature drops.
Gdetrailer AGM do about six times better than FLA in the cold.
AGM will lose less capacity in the cold but it does have some shortcomings like higher upfront price, a bit lower Ahr capacity for the same given cu inches of space and has a few bad habits of gel cells on top of that to deal with and for good measure if overcharged high and long enough will breach the popoff valve and vent out what little precious electrolyte liquid it contains rendering it a very expensive doorstop.
Good note on AGMs is they typically do not off gas unless totally abused which means if you really must, they can be put inside your living area.
I have a bunch of UPS units around my house, they all came equipped with AGM instead of Gel cells, life of AGMs in "standby use" is far shorter than Gel cells. Older UPS units which came with Gelcells battery life was 5-6 yrs, the newer units equipped with AGMs I end up changing out 2-3 yrs..
Gets downright expensive after a while replacing AGMs.. So much so, have considered dumping the standalone UPS units, adding a dedicated Triplite APS series inverter/charger and yes, a pair of 6V FLA GC2s.. I can setup the GC2s/inverter/charger in a separate garage where my whole house gen lives and run inverter only power back to a couple of dedicated outlets.. Instead of needing to replace $60-$100 worth of AGMs every 2-3 yrs I would now have 10+ yrs of battery life.
Call me cheap, but dang those little wimpy AGMs hurt the wallet.
